An intense blended experience

One of the advantages of being on a sabbatical is that you have time on your hands and the possibility of reading all the books you have always wanted to dive into, going to conferences and workshops you’d barely have the strength or energy to attend and being available to meet and talk at length to people whom you only read about online and you’d seldom make contact with if on a normal 8 to 5 school timetable. Just awesome!

Work expands to fill the time available for its completion. I have finally managed to upload all the recordings I made of the Fortaleza Hornby Forum to Podomati and although I have also enrolled (somewhat late) for Leigh Blackall’s open online workshop on Facilitating Online Communities and keep trying to answer the assignments in my mind, I have fallen behind in the posts and comments.

This week and next lots to digest and will have to put on my thinking and creative cap – tomorrow a workshop and discussion on CmapTools with Dr. Alberto Canãs, Associate Director of the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition. Next week, a series of presentations and debates at the 3rd Communication and Mobility Symposium, featuring a stelar list of national and international speakers. On Wednesday 27th, an invitation to join a discussion with Peter Weill, Director of the Center for Information Systems Research & Senior Research Scientist at MIT Sloan School of Management and the last weekend of August will be devoted to Blogcamp SPaulo.

Somehow I feel I cannot miss the opportunity of this overview of seemingly different but converging fields, capturing the energy of these f2f events and interacting with those who are present. I will try to record this blend of online and real experiences in writing when I can.